Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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A variety of apples on a rustic wooden table.

Apples Have Never Tasted So Delicious. Here’s Why

Apple experts divide time into “before Honeycrisp” and “after Honeycrisp,” and apples have never tasted so good.
Donald Trump at a podium

The New Trumpian Bargain

Trump's second term echoes 19th-century policies: tariffs and immigration limits protect workers, while deregulation risks widening inequality.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gives a speech celebrating ADL’s centennial in 2013.

The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems

The ADL's influence on U.S. politics mobilizes against Black and Arab leaders, enforces pro-Israel stances, and capitalizes on anti-hate efforts.
Supreme Court justices William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, and Owen J. Roberts at the White House.

FDR’s Compliant Justices

The Supreme Court’s deference to FDR during World War II resulted in unjustifiable ethical breaches.
Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C.

Immigration and Mental Health Collide, Again

Trump's seeming mixup of asylum-seeking refugees with patients in psychiatric institutions stems from a long rhetorical and political tradition.
Demonstrator holding a Christian nationalist sign with a cross painted like the American flag.

The Peril Radicalizing Some Evangelicals Goes Beyond Christian Nationalism

Christian supremacists are plotting the end of America as we know it.
A collage of newspapers declaring various elections to be "the most important election in our lives."

The Most Important Political Platitude of Our Lifetime (and Many Others)

How a simple message came to be used nearly word-for-word in elections large and small for more than 200 years.
Cover of "The Corporation in the Nineteenth-Century American Imagination" featuring a dragon with its tentacles entrapping people.

Between The Many and The One

Stephanie Mueller´s book sheds light on the percieved death of liberalism and the fear of corporations.
Black and white photo of two African American men standing in front of March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom sign.

The Obamas’ “Rustin”: Fun Tricks You Can Do on the Past

The project of “reclamation and celebration” proceeds from an impulse to rediscover black Greats who by force of their own will make “change.”
President Woodrow Wilson riding as a passenger in a two seater car with his chauffeur, George Howard.

States’ Rights or Inalienable Rights?

Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.
Artifacts recovered from Washington on the Brazos, including a plate and a pipe.

Archaeologists Dug Up a Vanished Texas Town and Found 10,000 Artifacts

It’s part of a project to rebuild Washington-on-the-Brazos, “the birthplace of Texas,” where the declaration that created the Republic of Texas was signed.
Oil painting by Samuel F. B. Morse titled "The Muse: Susan Walker Morse."

Jilted: Samuel F. B. Morse at Art’s End

The rejection that ended Morse's art career eventually led to the invention of the telegraph.
Pamela Harriman posing in an expensively decorated bedroom beside a four poster bed.

How a Mid-Century Paramour Became a Democratic Power Broker

Churchill weaponized her powers of seduction—but Pamela Harriman came into her own when she brought her glamour to Washington.
Phil Little Thunder, a great-great-grandchild of the Lakota chief whose village was attacked in 1855.

How Recovering the History of a Little-Known Lakota Massacre Could Heal Generational Pain

The unraveling of this long-buried atrocity is forging a path toward reconciliation.
Davy Crockett monument in Texas.

The Political Example of Davy Crockett

As a congressman, Davy Crockett found ways to navigate populist upheaval and maintain his own independence.

Today’s Echoes of the First ‘America First’

Charles Lindbergh’s ideology prefigured Donald Trump’s—and was rightly disgraced.
Rep. Marcantonio in front of a mobile office trailer meeting neighborhood children.

Congressman Vito Marcantonio: A Utopian Vision for His Time and Ours

Vito Marcantonio fought racial, social, and economic injustices, promoting cross-cultural solidarity and progressive ideals amid McCarthyism and segregation.
A crowd at a Trump rally, holding signs and flags endorsing him, as well as a Confederate flag.

Trump Is Not an Aberration

America’s path has been contested since its founding, and realizing the promise of liberty required generations of struggle.
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
A view of Wall Street and Federal Hall in the Financial District in New York City.

In the 1970s, the Left Put a Good Crisis to Waste

In "Counterrevolution," Melinda Cooper reads the 1970s economic crisis as an elite revolt rather than proof of the New Deal order’s unsustainability.
Photo by Ralph Ellison of men standing by a street in New York City.

Ralph Ellison’s Alchemical Camera

The novelist's aestheticizing impulse contrasts with the relentless seriousness of his observations and critiques of American society.
Children smile and wave flags at a Farmer-Labor Party demonstration, circa 1920.

The Rise and Fall of Midwest Populism

When the Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party merged into the Democratic machine, its populist energies were chewed up and spat out.
Image of the outline of the United States in red fire.

A Dark Reminder of What American Society Has Been and Could Be Again

How an obsessive hatred of immigrants and people of color and deep-seated fears about the empowerment of women led to the Klan’s rule in Indiana.
A Chinese American woman riveter at work.

Could “Rosie the Riveter” Be Chinese American?

Despite having their citizenship withheld before the war, Chinese American women in the Bay Area made significant contributions to the wartime labor force.
Doorkeeper at a meeting of the United Mine Workers of America in Wheelwright, Kentucky.

Before Operation Dixie

What the failed Southern labor movement teaches us about the rightward shift in US politics.
Protestors standing against the death penalty.

An Exercise in Political Imagination: Debating William F. Buckley

Stephen Bright and Bryan Stevenson defended the abolition of capital punishment at a moment when political support for that movement reached its nadir.
The Fallen Angels on the Wing by Gustave Doré, a dark painting of angels falling from heaven.

The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost

From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.
Johnny Carson hosting the Tonight Show.

The Amazing, Disappearing Johnny Carson

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.
A World History Encloypedia graphic image/illustration of The Feudal Society in Medieval Europe.

American Feudalism

A liberalism that divides humanity into a master class and a slave class deserves an asterisk as “white liberalism.”
Portrait of John Brown beside the American flag, c.1846.

America, Lost and Found at Wounded Knee

Stephen Vincent Benét’s lost epic “John Brown’s Body” envisions a nation sutured together after the Civil War, but fails to reckon with the war’s causes.
Aftermath of the explosions at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine.

How Congress Is Written Out of History

Congress's role in shaping policies like the Affordable Care Act and exonerating Port Chicago sailors is often overlooked, overshadowed by the president.
A black and white photo of an American soldier on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2005.

God’s Directive

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, evangelical American missionaries followed military tanks into Afghanistan and Iraq to convert Muslims.
Thomas Carlyle.

A Fundamentally Anti-Democratic Tradition: Zack Beauchamp's "The Reactionary Spirit"

Where conservatives may seek to conserve their democratic systems, reactionaries by their nature seek to weaken or abolish them.

How Woodrow Wilson’s Privileged Southern Upbringing Influenced His Love Life

In Wilson’s chivalric framework, women were required to be submissive precisely so that men could protect the weaker sex.
Donald Trump standing behind a podium at a campaign event with his family at his side.

It’s the Charisma, Stupid

It’s not whom you’d want to get a beer with, but whom you’d want to watch getting a beer.
"The Underground Railroad" (1893) by Charles T. Webber depicts a fugitive slave reaching the North.

The Abolitionist Titan You’ve Never Heard Of

John Rankin, minister and fierce abolitionist, is a man worth remembering in our moment.
Magnifying glass on top of the book "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley.

The Man Who Invented the “Psychopath”

Hervey Cleckley wanted to treat the most overlooked psychiatric patients. Instead his work was used to demonize them.
Polling volunteer handing a voter an "I Voted" sticker.

Did We Just See an Electoral Realignment?

Shifting voting patterns suggest it’s possible, but only if they persist through subsequent elections.
A scale measuring the weight of gold flakes; with a quill, wax seals, lace, and jewelry.

Where Inflation Comes From

How we calculate inflation has always been a subject of debate. Small changes that might seem trivial lead to enormous changes in how well-off we think we are.
Photo of Kamala Harris speaking at a moderated conversation with Liz Cheney.
partner

Why People Should Stop Comparing the U.S. to Weimar Germany

Those who draw a line from today to that infamous historical moment when democracy slid into authoritarianism are missing a key difference.

History Teaches …

On being defeated.

You Had to Be There

Whose side is the war correspondent on?
Drawing of a competetitve pedestrian walking in the late 1800s with spectators watching.

America’s Earliest Sports Stars Were … Professional Walkers?

Walking needs no publicist. The simplest, most accessible form of exercise has been around since humans first foraged and traveled on the ground.
A drawing of protestors wrestling a tax collector to the ground.

A Prudent First Amendment

Often, the proper scope of the First Amendment can be determined only by considering both text and context.
Netanyahu, Trump, Orban, Modi.

The Reactionary Bind

In assessing the rise of the global anti-democracy movement, the United States must look inward as well as outward.
A Public Health Services physician checking a woman immigrating into the United States for illness.

How the Irish Became Everything

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
Illustration of Ives seen as an American counterpart to Mahler.

Charles Ives, Connoisseur of Chaos

Celebrating the composer’s 150th birthday, at a festival in Bloomington, Indiana.
A computer, business documents, envelope, and a broadcast tower.

How Tech Giants Make History

AT&T’s early leaders used PR to sway public opinion, casting their monopoly as a public service and obscuring its political roots.
A 1923 General Electric advertisement of a women standing over a light switch.

Using Women’s Suffrage to Sell Soup and Cereal

In the 1920s, advertisers tried to convince women to exercise their political power not only at the ballot box but also in the store.

Congress’s Power to Investigate Crime Is More Important Than Ever

A new historical study finds that Congress’s authority to investigate crime is “indispensable” to the system of checks and balances.
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